Our Resident Microbes: What is Your Gut Microbiome Telling You?

As part of the Friday Center's "What's the Big Idea?" lecture series, this presentation will introduce you to the terms “microbiome” and “microbiota” and will highlight the importance of a healthy gut microbiota. The talk will also define the most current scientific methods to analyze the human-associated microbiota and the effect of diet, nutrition, and other factors on the gut microbiota composition.

The microbiome is the community of microorganisms that live in or on the human body. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), there were eighteen publications containing the word “microbiome” in 2005. The number of microbiome scientific studies published in 2012 reached 1,516, and today there are over 4,000 publications in this field, many of which have had a major impact on human and animal health. Components of microbiome can be considered targets for drug development and have been associated with human diseases like obesity, inflammatory bowel diseases, and necrotizing enterocolitis. This presentation will introduce you to the terms “microbiome” and “microbiota” and will highlight the importance of a healthy gut microbiota. The talk will also define the most current scientific methods to analyze the human-associated microbiota and the effect of diet, nutrition, and other factors on the gut microbiota composition.

M. Andrea Azcarate-Peril is an assistant professor of cell biology and physiology and director of the Microbiome Core Facility, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.